Adventures in an Urban Kitchen Garden
A journal of sorts
January 1, 2024
Well, I stayed up sort of late NYE '23, so I slept through
my 8 straight hours and got up at 8:30. Having a cup of
coffee and detailing these pics I shot half an hour ago
and getting ready to head out to see what happened last
night in the garden. Hopefully a rat went for a swim, but
they seem too smart to fall for that except that I know they're
stupid enough to eat the peanut butter & baking soda fudge
I leave for them in the garage. Do they think that sort of magical
goodness just appears naturally in their ratworld? Guess they're
not smart enough to beware of Greeks, and all that. So it's a
new year. Maybe they'll go for a swim one of these days.
Finally gonna be enough salad around here and I'm
talking about *good* organic salad and not at
any three or four bucks a head, either...
Four each of six types of salad here. Those are Outredgeous,
a very red lettuce; Buttercrunch, a butterhead heirloom lettuce
developed in 1963
; Merlot, a very dark red baby green
lettuce; Merveille De Quatre Saisons, a red, pre-1885
French heirloom; Great Lakes 118, an iceberg
lettuce from the 60's; and, Red Sails, another buttery
red 'baby green' lettuce. Yes, I like red leaf lettuce.
Especially with blue cheese dressing.
About 18 each of Landis Winter andYedikule lettuces here.
Keep in mind that the seeds were placed in the .75" soil blocks
on December 28th. That is less than three full days ago.
I figure that makes potentially about 60 lettuces or more.
They 'mature' at different rates; some 45 days, some 70 days,
which is nice since they don't all bolt at the same time.
I will be succession seeding lettuces once a month or so.
Hell, I might pretend I'm a vegetarian for a while.
Oh, and guess what likes to eat aluminum after all?
January 2, 2024
Reviewed the garden this morning, did a few chores like tacking
down the hoops for the floating bed cover on raised bed #1,
but spent most of the day in the garage straightening up and making
it work-worthy for the coming days of gloom as winter develops.
The seedlings dry out quick under 4x8000 lumens from the LED
fixtures but I refuse to have leggy seedlings.
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Heat maps are off and lights are on. Twelve hours a day, rain or shine.
January 5, 2024
Some sweet garlics.
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The starter lettuces are getting bigger; the green ones anyway...
The last couple of days have seen me puttering around
in the garden in the mornings before I have to go to work.
Haven't done a lot; repaired a little damage from two
days of rain and some heavy wind. Got the plastic on the
two cold beds, which turns them into little mini greenhouses.
On my next weekend, which starts in two days, I will be
putting all those little cubes in the photo above into 2" pots
with holes in the bottoms so I can tray water them from
the bottom. I feel bad spraying them and they dry out too quickly
under the lights. It's weird, but there is always something to
do out there; always something else which needs some attention.
I have some plywood in the garage which is taking up space.
I think it will make a nice cabinet/platform for some pots in the
annex while at the same time providing a place to hide the
charcoal and smokewood and flamethrower for the barbecues.
Might have to paint it some wacky color to contrast the lime/
grasshopper green furniture in the rest area. Robert Mozejewski
gave me a good idea for a bigger greenhouse. I'll see if I can
git 'r dun ...
January 6, 2024
Spent the morning before work moving most of the .75" soil blocks
into 2" square pots. It's more civilized that way, and as all of the
pots have holes in the bottom I can water them more efficiently.
I hate it when they dry out under the lights...
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The artichokes are coming along. The snapdragons aren't looking great. The Landis Winter
lettuces are going great guns, as are the Yedikule lettuces. The King Tut purple peas
and the Lillian's Caseload peas are looking good. Not too sure about the violas.
Bought a couple high-end watering cans. I like them .
One of them's
s got a problem though. It really shouldn't do this.
The red bucket is full of graywater; i.e., the output from the washing machine.
I have special liquid laundry detergent that doesn't contain boron or salts so it's
safe to water plants with. Naturally, a couple of my flowers require boron to thrive !!
January 7, 2024
It was (and is) windy again. I had to pick up some trays and stuff. While
I was out there I mulled over moving some of the workbenches and
cabinets to make a longer work area. I intend for that work area to
double as a more sheltered space for seedlings. It feels like time is
moving slowly - hour by hour, day by day - but it's already the end of
the first week of January. Mid-late February is really not that far off and
there will be hundreds of seedlings to provide room and shelter for. I will
be germinating 10 plants for every variety, planning on keeping the best
two of each variety for production. That means accumulating a lot more
4" pots (plastic) for seedlings and terracotta pots for plants and time is
growing shorter every day! Today will be the day for finishing off the
transfer of the .75" soil blocks into 2" pots as well as a million other chores.
In rat news, the little darlings hoovered up my ground-up dried strawberries and
bicarbonate of soda mixture, which I considerately left out for them in the garage.
They are the 'red berries' that come with Special K; dessicated wafers of bad
flavor which get soggy and ruin every mouthful of cereal. I remove them from
the package, and had been reserving them for my worms, but I read rats like
berries and they mix well with baking soda so ... The worms get plenty already.
They get all the banana skins, vegetable trimmings and leftover anything that
isn't meat for the most part. Eggshells get blended into fine powder and mixed
with kelp, diatomaceous earth, oyster shells, neem cake, etc. to provide grit
for the little darlings. Coffee grounds go into the 'compost' pile; a miserable
excuse for one anyway, since I can't seem to find any grass clippings to activate it.
Exhausted. The wind never let up. That said, I managed to transplant about 40 or 50
seedlings into 2" pots. It's very exciting. Got something accomplished.
It's a new look !! The big rubber shed is gone.
Worlds in motion ...
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The garlic is planted. There were a LOT of roots in those
four inch pots. Very vigorous plants !
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At this point I have too many seedlings growing to fit them
all into the laundry room under the lights. Oh dear ...
Out in the coldbeds, there are about 35 or 40 little
lettuce plants seemingly thriving in their new little 2" pots.
I also started some more broccolis, spinach and some
Walla Walla onions. Good times.
January 8, 2024
Got out early, took care of a little reorganization of some of the
earliest seedlings, which, sadly, have been doomed to grow up
outside in the elements away from heat pads and grow lights.
Still, they seem to be okay. Did a bunch of separating of multiple
seedlings in one pot and will fiercely try to never do that again.
Yesterday was bitterly cold, and my hands were really feeling
it while I was repotting all those transplants. Today started out
chilly, but got a lot nicer pretty soon. Having broken down and
removed that big storage shed yesterday, and moving the tall
cabinet over there I was motivated to lose the other big rubber
storage shed in the backyard and it ended up replacing a smaller
one in the front. The smaller one got sent to the annex where all
the charcoal and smoking woods and propane tank are now out of
sight, if not out of mind. Day by day I'm liking the backyard more.
It's so exciting knowing that in a short six or seven weeks it will be
time to start getting my beloved tomatoes going.
No more shed !! The cans will be going to the back, more
out of sight and there will be a rest area where they are now.
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I am not horrified by having a small shed in the annex. The oval aluminum
planter will tarnish up nicely in time and will be a flower bed, breaking up the
seating area
and looking cool out the kitchen window.
Cauliflowers and snapdragons.
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Just about ready to clip a few of those at the base for my
first homegrown salad of the year. When you clip 'em short,
the leaves grow back! It's going to be a few more weeks before
my lettuce seedlings are ready to go into the ground but after that
there will be daily heads.
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This is coldbed no. 2. It's full of seedlings that don't deserve
to be left out in the cold and wind. Hopefully they will appreciate
it enough to provide a lot of food later in the year.
These are a bunch of lettuce seedlings which didn't fit into the
laundry room or either of the coldbeds. Necessity being my mother
it was just a moment's work whipping up a protective shield
for them until tomorrow. If those awful big winds develop while
I'm sleeping and knock the plastic off the bricks and the plastic
(or the bricks) crush my little buddies I'll be pissed !!!
January 9, 2024
Future Spinatches!
I wasn't out in the garden much today. I had too many things to do
around town. One of them was picking up Gort, who will fulfill the
job of scarecrow. Here he is:
He's pretty much life-size. Very awkward carrying him around; there's
only one useful fulcrum to hold onto and that's a handhold I wasn't going
to take advantage of. I managed to get him home.
Another stop was to pick up my sawbuck, which I had left at a friend's
house awhile back. I built it a couple of years ago when I had a lot of
pecan and mesquite to cut up into smoker-sized pieces. Today, it having
served its purpose, it got turned into another cold bed so the baby lettuce
seedlings don't have to stay in that clumsy thing I threw together yesterday.
I have to finish off the opening but it got dark too quick today. I
did manage to push another half a dozen cloves into the ground
so now I'll be looking at 12 heads of garlic. Only have to press
about 20 more in for the year, right?
Speaking of today, I just couldn't resist those lettuces anymore so
I grabbed a few by the scruff of their necks and sliced. This is what
they looked like before the salad spinner got 'em:
Dang! How tender do those look? Here's how they shaped up
in an actual salad:
When you hack 'em off at the base the plants grow out more leaves.
Enough to tide me over till my hundred or so lettuce seedlings start
bustin' their moves.
On a sadder note, the snapdragons are not looking too great. Will have
to start some more seedlings and see if they pick up the slack.
That's it for today. Back to the television for another couple
of episodes of Letterkenny. Now that I've learned the language
they speak in Ontario, Canada, it's even better. Ferda.
January 10, 2024
Got up early, repotted more pricked-out seedlings, and
started some more broccoli and cauliflower seedlings. It's amazing
how time flies when you're puttering around doing lots of little
jobs. This coming weekend I am going to have to go a little
medieval on the original 'plantings' of the spindly seedlings
into the garden (too soon, but I was excited) and cull them
out where possible. Otherwise, it'll be clearing out space
for what's coming next as these things mature. Time passes
slowly but suddenly they're two weeks old and robust. All of
the basic gardening I used to know and forgot is coming back.
All it takes are delicate seedlings in your fingers.
Went through the pages and aligned the theoretical germinating
schedule with the Goggle online calendar so I can review it
and keep track of when what goes into the dirt. A lot of varieties
of things are scheduled for every weekend in the rest of January
and all of February, and even a couple in March. I can't wait for
the weekend of February 18th! That's when tomatoes and peppers
go into the trays and the sauna. Which means three weeks later
they go into 4" pots and then, in April or so, they go into the ground.
Which means the interplanted marigolds and basil will have to
be ready at the same time, 'cause they'll be the borders of Tomato
Alley; their portfolio being to protect my juicy red honeys from
slimy predators and the like. Nice work if you can get it.
Meanwhile, the lettuce seedlings are thriving apparently.
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January 11, 2024
Little lettuces, continuing their journey
More lettuces, and broccolis too
January 13, 2024
Lazy day! Checked out the garden in the morning. Pricked out the
last doubled-up seedlings (in pots; the beds are a mess of plant
incest), except for the mess in the photo above which it almost
too horrible to face. I added some water to some trays and glanced in on
the newest, as yet unseen seedlings on the heating mats in
the coldbeds. Pulled all the seedling trays out to give them some
fresh air for the day.
Not very exciting.
Got home as it was getting dark and returned all the trays to
their coldbeds for the night. Looking forward to tomorrow -
it's going to be a big day with a lot of new seeds installed into
soil blocks and/or seed trays, potting soil tests with
appropriate amendments. Scooped some ash (potash) out of the
fireplace from my last couple of fires for potassium amendments.
Going to have to sacrifice my worktable in the guitar room for
seed tray placement indoors. Must get a few more LED lights.
It's gonna be fun ...
January 14, 2024
Today was good. Got all the seeds I wanted to start started. Did
up two pots of wheatgrass for juice as well. The last photo above
shows the violas and some other stuff which never took off except
to have groups of about 8 seedlings clumped everywhere so I had
to get back to pricking out seedlings again. Ended up with about
40 little pots out of it; not all of them will make it but for sure
none of them would have survived if I hadn't taken drastic measures.
I filled in "Flower Island,"
except for the flowers part since they won't go into the germination
rotation for several weeks ... those snapdragons are there as
placeholders, but there's a plan. I have lots and
lots of stuff growing; not sure where I'm going to put half of it -
while it's preparing for transplanting to the garden or in the garden
itself. I suppose it will all work out. I also added more seeds to
the sideyard border. That is going to be a mess of color and wildness.
I way too densely sowed, so it'll be a competition for survival.
They were all of my old flower seeds from a decade ago; it's possible
all of the sprouts popping up are just weeds. We'll know eventually.
That's enough green for more than 140 future meals there !
Started Groninger Brussels Sprouts, King Richard leeks, Merlo Nero
spinach, Matador
shallots, Merlot lettuce and a mess 'o Koral carrots -
really only 24. Growing them for the fun of it; those 24 are only about enough
for 3 carrot juices. Way too much precious garden space for
such a heavy-footprint crop. The crops I like grow *up* - tomatoes,
peppers, cucumbers, beans, peas ... and cost a fortune at the farmer's market.
Given property values around
here, it's unacceptable land use
when you can buy a 25 pound bag of carrots at Jetro for ten bucks.
Don't be surprised if I pull the plug on them before they mature.
I had thrown a bunch of old flower seeds into the sideyard
border a few weeks ago when the packets accidentally got wet.
I figured the best way to test viability would be to scatter them.
Lots of little things have popped up; but today I used up the
rest of my ancient flower seeds, scattering Camellia-Flowered Balsam,
"Love Lies Bleeding" amaranth over them and planting some
Marvel of Peru Four O'Clock and "Funny Valentine" Cypress Vine seeds
amongst them. Like I said, it's gonna be a carnival out there.
If any actual flowers survived 10 years in a plastic box in the laundry room...
Lastly, I put ten Russell Blend Lupines into minipots. There were a bunch
of no-name lupines scattered in the first wave. If these Lupines make
it a couple of them will find their place in the "Flower Island."
There are those Lupines. It's doubtful they'll sprout but who knows?
January 15, 2024
Did soil tests on my basic potting soil. Sufficient in nitrogen and potash,
but slightly deficient in phosphorus. Must see to that. Built a stage for
the seedlings under light and moved them to the guitar room.
So now I have double the inside seedling space and with four more lights
on the way the laundry room will soon be unusable again. Just in time to
do a load before they get here. Some of those cells don't look so great
in the photo but that's because the little lettuces are very dark green
and don't show much against the soil. Part of today's job will be building
another stage for lights for the laundry room so I don't have to use bricks
to hold up the lights. They ain't pretty but they work.
A few hours later, I managed to get another stage created to
hold up the lights for the second indoor grow station
(back in the laundry room):
I like using up all the old boards and sticks of wood that
have been cluttering up the landscape
Still not beautiful, but always better than wobbly bricks. This little stage is
29" inches wide and 23 inches long - big enough to hold two 1020 trays.
Technically the above aren't 1020 trays but these two are about as
wide as 2 1020s. You want airflow when the plants are under lights;
they need air and what's even better is a little breeze from a fan. That
will help the stems to harden up - survival tools for better production.
And, of course, right there in front of my eyes, three little pots with
quite a few seedlings that need pricking out. Does it ever end?
You don't want air when seeds are germinating. You want heat and moisture.
Here we have two 1020 trays, not side by side, but next to each other
the long way. They are both on heating pads which is pushing the soil
temperature up around 70-75F. The humidity domes are helping the soil
to retain that heat and keeping things moist. As soon as most of the
seedlings have popped up out of the soil off come the domes and
off the heating mat they go. That's when they need grow lights so they
don't get all spindly and longshanky like my first batch of seeds got.
Some of them have recovered but generally speaking they will be
sacrificed for the second batch, which came up the right way.
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Some of these lettuces, which got scalped for my first
home-grown salad a few days ago, are starting to regrow
length in the cut leaves. A few of the others look like
potential victims to the knife tomorrow.
Those dark, dark red ones are not very pleasing to the
eye,
photographically
speaking, but they eat well ...
January 16, 2024
Well, I did savage the lettuces but I didn't document it any more
than I documented the salad I just ate.
I am constitutionally incapable of just killing seedlings, even those
that would appear to have no chance to advance in life. So, it was with
a certain degree of pleasure than I attacked the problem brewing in
the raised beds. So now, well, there are another 80 or so seedlings
in small pots.
Not sure how many of these lanky things will make the cut,
but they'll get their shot at life until they can't get it up anymore.
They are mostly lettuces, cauliflowers and maybe some radishes.
It's not certain that they will make it but I buried the lanky ones
deep and that might help them grower stronger root systems. The
real problem is the tall buildings and trees which block a lot of sun
and the fact that at this time of the year the sun is more-or-less
on the horizon as far as my garden is concerned.
It won't really be direct sunlight for a few months.
January 17, 2024
Up at 0600 hours. Closed my eyes and when I opened them again
damned it wasn't 7:32. Bingo. "Winter is coming," babe.
First thing was to check on the seedlings which are under light 14 hours
a day and I can
honestly say that once again, a scant day later, I can see progress.
Hollywood moment:
As I typed that The Byrd's version of Pete Seeger's "Turn Turn Turn" started playing.
Anyway, first thing was looking in on these:
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Starting at the back, in kind of a jumbled array:
Broccoli, lupines, artichokes, viola Envy, snapdragons,
Unzen onions, viola Tiger Laeta, different snapdragon,
more broccoli.
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This is all Landis Winter and Yedikule lettuces with
one lonely onion straggling at the back.
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This one is more complicated. The left row is all Rabe cauliflower.
The next one over is all Calabrese cauliflower. The third row is
Outredgeous lettuce in the first four pots, then Grano onions.
The fourth row are a couple pots of oregano, then more
Outredgeous lettuce with more onion behind them.
This one (#4) has 8 more Outredgeouses in lane 1. There are 3
Merveilles, then 5 Rouge 'd Hivers in lane 2. The first 4 in lane 3
are Crispheads, followed by Red Sails and the fourth lane lettuces
are Buttercrunches.
So, after monitoring the growlight ranks, I had me a cup of coffee,
then went out to finish up the job of clearing off the front
porch for good and forever hopefully. I'm really liking
this process of clearing shit out. After an hour of drudgery went inside
and scrambled some eggs to regain my strength. After that I pulled all
of the seedlings out of their coldbeds and left them out for what little
sunshine they can harness from wimpy Mr. Sun today.
Then I figured I deserved something wickedly delicious
to drink but
I settled for a green smoothie.
I'm sorry, but while these may be good for you they are not wickedly
delicious. They are not even moderately delicious. When I think of
a delicious smoothie I'm thinking peanut butter and banana, or
chocolate, peanut butter and banana. And while you might be able
to hide spinach and kale in those, you shouldn't.
It is another work week, so aside from pulling the trays back into
their cubbies when I get home the day's fun work is about over.
January 18, 2024
Hey, now. Well, I was a bit groggy this morning but that wasn't going
to keep me from my work. Let's see ... hmmm... Got the lights on in
the guitar room, did a bit of watering, drank some coffee.
Went out back and puttered around, no transplanting or pricking
out. Fed the worms their gruel; there are a lot more of them this
month than last month. I like that. With not that much to do until
this weekend when it'll be time (probably too early but this is
exciting) to start seedlings for beets, catnip, cilantro and another
variety of snapdragons. Anyway, with not that much to do this morning
I shot some pictures. And, my first little video for the journal, depicting
the guitar room seedlings enjoying some inane new-age music because
someone told me plants like hearing that shit.
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Peas before swine !
Planted. Must remember to string something they can climb behind them.
This is my worm hotel. The lid goes with the theme of the yard.
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I really haven't got a clue where all of these are going...
And we're not even into the big guns yet, not by a long shot.
January 19, 2024
Today was sort of a slacker day. Put the plants out, watered where
needed, then went out front to watch the guy try to clear my main
drain with his hydrojet. It's cleared some, but there's bad news
on the horizon for my wallet.
Some re-supplies showed up, 2" and 4" pots, trays, a 5-cell soil block for
the 72 cell tray (an indulgence but you can't take it with you), some
16-16-16 fertilizer, a replacement rose for the defective two pint Haws
Ripple watering can and lastly, apparently, some "Magic Carpet" snapdragon
seeds. Says there were delivered, but I didn't see them.
Four inchers.
Heavy duty stuff; 1020 trays (tall and 2 short), 2" insert pots for the
32 cell trays (soil blocks go into them) and a couple more humidity domes.
We cookin' with gas now.
It was dark when I got home. I put away the plants, and put the green
polycarbonate over the raised beds to protect the seedlings and lil'
plants from the big bad rain that's coming. As long as there's no big
bad wind to send them into orbit it should be fine.
Tomorrow morning it will be time to make sure everything is secure for
the rain and also, to move some of the bigger seedlings in 2" pots into
4" pots due to the white roots which are starting to grow out of the pots.
It's progress. I'm finally starting to see some growth.
January 20, 2024
Got out and protected for the rain and assembled my transplanting gear
Transplanted 4 broccolis and a few lettuces, but as it was raining it
was cramped in the laundry room. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.
Sadly, those Russell lupines from 10 years ago aren't going to make it.
Gots lots of works to do this weekends.
Tired of drowning the little 'uns, so the covers went back on.
Took a picture of a couple of the worms while I was out there.
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Night all.
January 21, 2024
Did some cleanup of seedlings. Expunged some that weren't going
to make it, started others that hopefully will make it. The ones that
didn't make it were those that got planted outside before they were
ready; they never really had a chance ... except many of their little
buddies seem to be doing okay. In sadder news, I pulled the plug
on my carrots. Some of them had popped through the germination
process but the more I thought about them the less I was interested
in mothering them through 80 days of growth (and the real estate
they would need) for three lousy juices.
Planted 6 cilantros, 14 golden beets (must plant more later)
and some catnip for the kitties that wander through the yard, and
some more spinach (Monstruex)
. The fennel got transplanted to
Herb Avenue, the first herb to go into position. There
are some
extras, which I will deal with later.
At this time, there isn't any rain and at 10:30 AM the wildly inaccurate
Apple Weather app said it won't rain again until 2 PM Monday, so the
beds are open to the sky again -------------
Literally as I was typing the above I decided to check the weather app again
and damn if it didn't say it was drizzling at that moment. And it was right.
So out I rushed to organize the covers again, in light rain. Life is a
learning experience so the covers were deployed more efficiently the 2nd time.
The longer, dark green ones are for the 8' bed in the right corner, but I'm not
covering it at the moment. I know it would look better if they weren't so
long in the pictures but this is my garden and I can live with it. For now.
I'm just glad I got out early and took care of the new seed starts while
it was relatively warm and dry.
But I'm telling you,
AI is going to kill us all.
So it stopped raining and I got a chance to do more essential, but mindless
work outside. Thought I'd document a few things while I was at it.
This is coconut coir; it's used to create new beds for the worms when you
want to start a new one. I'm an extremely kind and generous wormmaster;
many people just use dirty old cardboard or shredded up newspaper. I suppose
that stuff is just as good, and I'm sure the worms don't care, but
in a pinch you can use coir for seedling soil if you are squeamish
about using (or just out of) peat moss. It's more expensive
than the peat, though, and I don't think it's as good. It is also sterile,
which
means there are no nutrients or biological benefits to it.
Speaking of seedling soil, these are soil blocks; 3/4" and 1.5" blocks.
When you first make them they are pretty soggy and can fall apart if you
try to install them in cell trays. I am trying out pre-making them, so they can
dry out and be easier to handle. The benefit of using them 'fresh' is that they
are wet enough for the seeds' first few days moisture requirement. You cannot
let the seeds get dry during this process. This is like Fanny Hillman's motto:
"You got it, you sell it, you still got it." If the experiment doesn't work out
I can just crumble them, re-wet them, and make more blocks.
Meanwhile, in cold bed #3, a bunch of stuff is sitting on heat mats. In this case
it's Matador shallots, King Richard leeks, a bunch of Merlot lettuces and
those Monstreaux spinaches and some more beets.
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On the left side are Bloomsdale spinaches, if they ever appear, beets, cilantro,
walla walla onions if they ever appear... This tray is under the humidity dome
when it's not starring in the pictures.
The laundry room has been re-deployed as a staging theatre again,
and it is the host for a lot of mismatched things. There are a lot of
those rescued seedlings finally getting some light, as well as other
seedlings that just didn't fit in the guitar room venue in
the picture below.
I'm no expert, but a casual glance at these seedlings kind of alarmed
me. Tell me if you don't think this thing in the red circle is a tomato
plant that somehow got germinated with the non-tomato stuff.
'Cause that looks like a tomato seedling to me.
It's not impossible that I will flat out run out of room before too long.
One forgets that a tiny seed can end up as 7' tall plant. From the getgo
I have told myself that I am really only growing one (maybe two) each of
the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, etc - the big plants. Lettuces are only
about 8" in diameter but in a way that means each one is almost a square foot.
100 lettuces is all my raised beds, and yet, there are broccolis and cauliflowers
to keep in mind. And that's just 5 varieties of plants.
I'm growing 40. Forty.
I have 10 different lettuces on the way, with 5-15 of each of them.
My friend Lea mocks me because of my big eyes (metaphorically
being bigger than my plate) and she might be right.
Still, if I run
out of room I'll just eat the seedlings. How bad can they be?
What with the rain, and not that much to do, it was a day for taking pictures, sorry.
West side of Tomato Alley.
This is a good portion of Tomato Alley. The Annex will also be a mostly tomato zone.
This is the Annex, but right now it's homebase for the terracotta project.
Each and every one of those clay pots will have flowers in it, except for
most of the big ones.
This is a limited view of the Galvanized project. I guess if a garden
has to have a theme, mine will be old dingy galvanized steel buckets.
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The East Side Peas are on the move.
Lastly (for now), here's the view when I'm washing dishes:
It's gonna be great when "Flower Island" and the rest of the yard fills in...
January 22, 2024
Oh, those lucky worms. It's only Monday and I've already got lots of delicious
stuff for them. I have carrots, avocado skins, the grotty butt-end of a head
of redleaf lettuce, kale stalks... and best of all, the contents of a couple
of bags of sunflower seeds *salted & roasted* that I found in the closet and
forgot to eat. I also found a bag of
dried shitake mushrooms and a large
bag of dried wood ear mushrooms that I've been hoarding
but those aren't for the worms.
I can tell you right now, the Magic Bullet is not up to the job of grinding this
stuff up. The Oskar did manage to blend all of the kitchen waste into usable
goodness that will be easy for the worms to process in their little gullets.
Best practice is to freeze all of the wormfood. That sets off the de
composition
process. After it thaws, it gets microwaved for 90 seconds.
That kills off any bad organisms. Ater it has retreated back to room
temperature it is safe to give to the little fellas.
It's raining a bit and there's really nothing to do in the garden this morning.
I will be starting some more cilantro when the sun comes out, that's about
it for the day although I couldn't help going out during a rain break and
having a look around. This is how it looks on the west side of Casa Koff:
I took the protective screening off for the time being.
January 23, 2024
It didn't rain today. I was out around 7:30. I had a lot of ketchup to play.
Got around 100 lettuce seedlings in the ground. Wouldn't you know the
gale force winds would kick up as I was washing up after a long day's work?
Started out by transplaning 9 more spinaches into the spinach patch. I have
decided to believe the experts who say you can pack 16 spinaches into a
square foot, but even so, I won't do it. I did pack 12 into a space a bit
bigger than a square foot. Looking forward to see how it turns out.
I'm pretty sure I'll just love spinach by the time all the growin's done.
My friends are already making me drink the stuff in the hideous green drinks.
Speaking of hideous, I know everyone else already knows and does all this,
but I documented more of the worm food saga today.
The banana went into my green drink. The others got frozen. The rinds were cut up
and shoved into the Oskar. That's a 16oz glass (for reference).
I kind of like doing this. I'm not sure why. Something satisfying about making mush.
I am up to one pound, eight ounces of mush for the worms and it's only Tuesday
morning. They get fed on Sunday mornings. Part of the reason I don't want to be buried.
Ivy basically gave me these racks. I needed them but I didn't really want to
have so many but that was being shortsighted. Of course they'll get used.
These are the lettuces I already had. Looks like it's time to grab another
salad's worth. The two I savaged are fluffing back up nicely.
This is about 45 of the lettuce seedlings that were hogging up the guitar room.
15 of the 16 Yedikules made the grade, and have only themselves, me, the wind
and the lack of sun to blame if they don't produce. Almost invisible in the soil
are about 30 Outredgeous lettuce seedlings. Keep your fingers crossed.
Raised bed #1 is the site of the Red Sails, the Merveilles, the Crispheads,
the Rouge d'Hivers and something else I can't remember. About 55 seedlings
planted here. That will end up being close to ONE HUNDRED HEADS if all goes well.
And they don't have to be snatched out of the ground. I can scavenge leaves from
ten varieties and they'll grow back !!! It's almost unbelievable. Lizzy came by
today and helped with some weeding. That was awesome. She pointed out that
tending this garden is going to become a bigger and bigger job. That's easy for
her to say. The seed mavens say to "succession plant" every 2-3 weeks. Are
they kidding? How many lettuces does one person need? They're all gonna
bolt and die ln June when it starts topping out at 90 degrees every day anyway.
There are 12 garlics growing. Kind of a waste of space; you can buy them at
Whole Foods for about 3 bucks a pound, but I plan to plant some other stuff,
shallots, scallions, chives among them to use up space. There will be some
cauliflowers or broccolis or something I forget which, at the back of that raised
bed which is #4 if we're keeping track. #5, just south of it, (but north in the
photo) is kind of being wasted now; it's full of radishes, another fairly useless
plant. Still, I wanted to see what wasabi radishes tasted like. Soon they'll be
gone - gotta make room for the spring/summer crops which are coming up fast.
No sooner did 125 seedlings get shoved into the soil today than all of
the inside real estate under the artificial sun get taken again. I'm not
100% sure what all's under here, but I'm sure I will before long.
Meanwhile, back in the guitar room, all of those spots are already taken too.
But it is a little less cramped now. Some of these things could have gone into
the ground today, like the artichokes, but they'll have their turn in the morning.
You have to get artichokes in early and hope they get cold enough to trick them into
fruiting the first year. I do love an artichoke. I like asparagus too, but they say
it takes three years to get your first spears and I'm not sure I have the time for that.
The joke'll be on me if it turns out I did.
It was a good day. I hope all those little lettuces will still be there in the morning.
January 24, 2024
Well, it's starting to fill in a little bit.
This is what it looked like two months ago:
Two more months and it will look like a Brazilian rain forest.
I'm feeling lazy today; not sure there's much for me to do today. I pulled a couple
of trays out of the cold bed so the seedlings could get some sun if any came out
and I'll have to put them back when I get home. Other than that, I think it's gonna
be a very idle day. I was delighted to see that all of the little lettuces were intact
this morning; in fact they looked fairly perky. Plants like the wind if it isn't too
brutal; it helps strengthen their roots and stems. Lea gave me to understand today
that she will be interested in some lettuce at some point. At least that's what I think
she was implying. She saves her eggshells for me, which I (and the worms) appreciate.
I'm trying to clear out the sunbeds (led sun god) so no new seedlings until the weekend of
February 4th (and then only celery and chives) because every weekend for a month from then
on will be rich in starter seedlings and anything that makes it until then kinda hasta be in the
ground by then. I'm starting eleven more herbs during the February 11th weekend and I'll
need that room for germination, and then, yikes, transplanting up to bigger pots.
January 25, 2024
Easy day No. 2. Planted a dozen cilantro seeds, that's all I'll be planting for the rest of
the month.
Spring seeding goes into effect on February 4th, with celery and chives.
Every weekend after that for a month will be a carnival of seed starting.
This is the garden this morning; it's finally starting to fluff up so you can see it.
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